Indoor plant lighting schemes

[Andrew in Germany]

I’ve been exploring plant lighting setups, especially for the winter months, and I’m curious—what is being used with success if anything? I’m more interested in modest setups for indoors rather than ones for large greenhouses. I’d be interested in hearing what works and what doesn’t. A lot of the descriptions on Amazon and other websites don’t seem very accurate.
I can’t remember the last time we saw sunlight, and it’s definitely testing the resilience of the houseplants brought for the winter.
Pics, lots of pics if you’ve got em!

[Fof]

Hi Andrew
I have a small cacti collection, which has to live, at the moment, on a SW facing window sill.
During the summer, I was having to rotate the plants very regularly to counter the phototropic effect.
This, coupled with the very poor summer, made me consider some form of overhead supplemental lighting.
After a bit of brain bashing, I purchased a Spider Farmer SF300 (33W LED).

This resolved the phototropism issue, but couldn't fix my second problem, temperature.
Cacti like colder temps in the winter, but as this is my living room, I can't keep the temperature as low as I would like.
To overcome this, I am in the process of having a full width window fitted in the porch and have got a pair of Spider Farmer SF1000 (100W LED) units for supplemental lighting there.
I can't show the new setup as the builder will start work tomorrow.
I have to say, I am very impressed with the SF300, and anticipate the same with the larger units.

I hope this helps.

Fof

[charlie]

Not really plant related but I have recently had to replace some Florescent tube type light fittings in the house and have been most impressed with their LED tube replacements, more light, a lot less wattage and they come on instantly - "Way to go" !

[Stan510]

100 watt LED must be super bright. With aquariums a spectrum to bring out the colors is really pretty much required. For plants not so much. Amazon LED's used for lighting garages will suffice. I myself am not convinced that reddish "plant lights" are better. Never noticed much of a difference.

[Fof]

Interesting comments, guys.
My reason for using LEDs, was to supply a more "even" source of light from above, as the light they were getting was from the side, through the window.
This caused the plants, and flowers, to continually try to lean towards the light (phototropism). This now ensures they grow upwards.
The SF units I'm going to use in the porch which, again, only has natural light form the side, does have the capability to be dimmed, if needed.
A greenhouse wouldn't have this problem, but I don't have one and don't really have anywhere I could site one.
The builder will be finished today, so once I have set it all up, I'll post pics of it.

[MartinNicklin]

It depends on the siting of the greenhouse. I have a real “swing to the left” in my greenhouse and because the plants are tall it is VERY noticeable. Unfortunately, I cannot change the orientation of my greenhouse!

[Taffy]

I'm no lighting expert but I use 4ft (1200mm in new money) fluorescent grow tubes for germinating tree fern spore and subsequently growing them on . A few months ago I bought the equivalent 4ft LED grow tube. Then the other day I downloaded a lux meter to my phone and found a big difference in readings between the two types. At a distance of 1ft , the height I keep them from my spore tubs, the lux reading for the fluorescent grow tube was approximately 1800 , the LED equivalent was just short of 9000. How that transposes to usable light for the young ferns I don't know but I've found with more established youngsters like my Sadleria cyatheoides I've had to increase the height to approximately 2ft due to some drying out of the odd frond and that's despite humidity levels being in the 90%range

[Andrew in Germany]

Well, this is a big help. I would be ok with my plants turning to the daylight, but we haven't seen enough daylight to move anything anywhere for weeks and weeks. I think the LED SF setup will do enough to bring things along until the end of March when temps and light levels are more cooperative. Thanks for the ideas
Andrew